Previously on Avatar… IGN revisited one of the great animated series of all time, Avatar: The Last Airbender! Since we’re missing some reviews in our backlog — in this case, episode 209 through 311 (22 episodes total) — we thought it’d be fun to fill that gap, while also looking back at what made the show so great. (Two turtle ducks with one stone!) We’ll be reviewing episodes Tuesdays and Fridays, so feel free to follow along by watching the episodes with us via DVD, iTunes or Amazon Prime!
For more on IGN TV’s summer flashback reviews, click here.
Warning: Full spoilers from the episode follow.
Pretty much the whole first half of “The Day of Black Sun, Part 1” was a “getting ready” montage for Team Avatar and its many allies — but what a montage it was! It was great to see so many folks from previous episodes turn up for the big invasion against the Fire Nation: Hakoda, the Foggy Swamp Tribesmen, Haru and his father, The Boulder and The Hippo — not to mention the Mechanist and Teo, who gifted Aang with his new-and-improved glider staff (with snack compartment).
There was definitely an air of excitement to this episode leading up the attack. In addition to reuniting with old friends, it was cool to see the Gaang take point on leading the fray. Though Sokka’s nervous and longwinded speech didn’t go as planned, he did get his moment to shine early on as he prepped the submarines that he and the Mechanist designed. It was also fun to see everyone change into nation-themed battle attire — particularly Aang, who shaved his head as a sign of his big return, plus toga-style garb, à la the opening intro. Oh, and Appa’s armor!
Koala sheep photobombing Aang’s big moment.
But I think what worked best about this episode was how the attack was divided into a naval stage and a land stage, thus giving both waterbenders and earthbenders their time to shine. The submarine sequence, for example, offered lots of neat moments for the waterbenders. Katara riding Appa underwater and resurfacing to water-slice one of the subs free was a nice bit of action on her part. I also thought it was clever how the waterbenders coated their torpedoes in ice so they could “fire” them with bending.
Meanwhile, on land, we got some exciting scenes with the centipede tanks and Huu reconstructing his plant monster from “The Swamp.” (“Takes awhile to collect this much seaweed!”) Of course, the big payoff here was Sokka taking the lead after Hakoda’s injury, which was a nice full-circle moment for him after his worried conversation with Aang. Indeed, Sokka found his groove on the battlefield, commanding the tanks and launching the next big assault.
And speaking of big payoffs, I had completely forgotten about Aang and Katara’s smooch before Aang left to confront Ozai. That was pretty huge for them! But despite the finality and passion in their words, there was also a sense of false hope to the proceedings in this. With 11 episodes left before the real showdown, we knew going that Team Avatar’s plan was destined to fail. Nevertheless, the setup here was solid and offered a great lead-in to Part 2 of “The Day of Black Sun.”
